


‘tis the damn season

by sunset_swerved



Series: sonsetcurve’s 12 days of jatpmas [1]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst, Christmas Lights, F/M, Giant Santa Inflatable, Grief/Mourning, descriptions of panic attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:36:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28075575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunset_swerved/pseuds/sunset_swerved
Summary: There it was. Sitting on the lawn.The inflatable Santa.Julie could feel the nerves creeping up, her palms started to itch and her nose felt like it was buzzing and she couldn’t move as she stared at the Santa Claus as it waved at her.She absolutely could not do this.
Relationships: Julie Molina & Luke Patterson
Series: sonsetcurve’s 12 days of jatpmas [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2056728
Comments: 9
Kudos: 73





	‘tis the damn season

**Author's Note:**

> for sonsetcurve’s tumblr 12 days of holiday thing! the prompt for day one was holiday lights and decorations!

Julie couldn’t help but let out a sigh that was mixed with both disappointment and relief as the light, trilling Christmas music that had been playing all morning turned off the second she (intentionally?) stepped on the creaky stair at the bottom of the staircase.

She knew she was being irrational, nobody had to tell her. After all, it was the second Christmas without her mom. Things should be getting back to normal, right? 

Right?

_ Nothing could ever be normal again, not without her mom. _

She turned the corner into the kitchen (past the boxes that she absolutely  _ didn’t want to see _ that were sitting next to the living room couch) to see her dad grooving to the music that was no longer playing as he moved a bunch of scrambled eggs around in the pan. Reggie was sitting on the island and kicking his legs back and forth while watching him.

“Come on, Ray!” the ghostly teenager said. “Turn the music back on. Where’s your Christmas spirit?”

But Ray didn’t answer, like he couldn’t hear him at all.

“No juice today?” Julie asked, a small smile on her face as she looked in the direction of her band mate. Reggie put on a sheepish grin and shrugged.

“No such luck,” he replied.

Her dad turned at that, the spatula in one hand and the pan of eggs in the other. “Morning  _ Mija _ , are the boys here?” He was grinning.

“Just Reggie,” she replied, a smile of her own on her face.

“Ah,  _ mijo _ , why didn’t you say so?” Ray asked, turned to the spot where Reggie was because that’s  _ always _ where he sat when the two of them were in the kitchen. 

Her dad had gracefully taken to the fact that her band mates were actually three teenagers who died in 1995. After they played the Orpheum, it was like everything and nothing changed at the same time, but it was a weight off of her shoulders knowing that she didn’t have to hide the dead kids in the garage anymore, especially when they were always around. 

No, instead she had to resist the urge to shove them down the stairs whenever they used up all the hot water.

( _ “Reggie you’re a ghost! You shouldn’t need to shower!” _

_ “Literally one of the first things I told you was that I liked baths, Julie!” _

_ “And one of the first things I told  _ **_you_ ** _ was that there was a shower in the garage! I’m going to be late to school!” _

_ “That sounds like a personal problem.”) _

Julie slid into the empty seat at the island as her dad started to talk to Reggie, as if he were fully corporeal and could engage as well. Reggie, on his part, pulled over one of the numerous white boards that both Carlos and Flynn conspired to have in every room for whenever the boys weren’t tangible and wrote back in the weird little short hand that the two had established.

If it wasn’t for the fact that he was, you know, unalive, she was sure that her dad would have adopted Reggie on the spot. He was always her dad’s favorite.

A plate of (slightly burnt) eggs and (definitely burnt) toast was eventually slid in front of her, Reggie watching it and almost drooling at the sight, and she started to pick around the crispiest bits.

“Don’t forget, Julie,” her dad started as he slid the other half of the eggs onto a plate for Carlos who was rummaging around upstairs. “We’re decorating tonight, so come straight home.”

The forkful of eggs stopped halfway to her mouth as she stared, eyes wide, at her father. She could see Reggie out of the corner of her eyes start to vibrate.

“Wait,” he started. “By ‘decorate’ do you mean-“

“Already?” Julie asked, her voice nearly cracking. She coughed to clear her throat, looking away from the two men who were now staring at her. “I thought…”

“Well, one of Carlos’ final homework projects is a picture of the family holiday decorations so we figured-“

“ _ We _ ?”

Ray sighed and sat the now empty pan back down on the stove. Julie, by this point, had dropped the fork and was instead staring at her dad blankly.

“Julie,” he began. “ _ Mija _ . I know it’s hard, but-“

Pushing everything  _ badwrongnotgoodnotfair _ down, Julie forced a smile on her face. “No its- it’s fine. Really,” she replied. “Mom would… mom would like it.” 

Her dad smiled and gently patted her hair, trying not to mess up the braids she had painstakingly woke up early to do. “I love you, okay?”

“I love you too,” Julie replied, her smile shaky, but there.

Reggie, for his part, didn’t interrupt at all.

* * *

Julie would be honest, she  _ absolutely _ couldn’t focus on her classes.

She walked through the halls almost like a zombie. Flynn was out for the day, a family thing, and so she was alone as she muddled through her classes in the fog that came out of nowhere.

Rose Molina had  _ loved  _ Christmas with every fiber of her being. She would single handed or decorate their entire house, from the floor boards to the rafters, with all manner of tinsel and garland and obnoxious snowmen statues that both  _ Tia  _ Victoria and her dad would get her. There would be light up candy canes out in front of their house that stood taller than Carlos, along with a giant, inflatable Santa that waved to the neighborhood.

Her mom had died in June, literally almost as far off from Christmas as one could get. It was like she had purposefully avoided wanting to taint the holidays for her family that were already grieving her so hard. 

It hadn’t helped. Gone was the inflatable Santa, the light up candy canes, the snowman army - they didn’t even hang up stockings that year until Christmas Eve when  _ Tia _ came over and did it herself.

Eventually, she apparently made it through her last class of the day. As the intercom buzzed on with information about the Winter Showcase, Julie slowly trudged through the halls, wondering that if it took longer for her to leave then she just… didn’t have to go home and deal with everything that she had placed neatly in a little box.

* * *

There it was. Sitting on the lawn.

The inflatable Santa.

Julie could feel the nerves creeping up, her palms started to itch and her nose felt like it was buzzing and she couldn’t move as she stared at the Santa Claus as it waved at her.

She  _ absolutely  _ could not do this.

Instead of walking down the path to their front door (past Santa who looked more like a harbinger of doom than a nice man who brought presents, Julie sideswiped the front and made her way around to the back gate that led to the studio.

Julie placed her hand on the handle that would open the door, but stopped before pulling on it as the soft tendrils of a song that she hadn’t heard in awhile played on an acoustic guitar.

Unsaid Emily.

She stood there, waiting, as her skin vibrated and her throat felt like it was closing as the soft melody of the song that she had given to Luke’s parents nearly consumed her. 

( _ “That’s a lovely sweater.” _

_ “Thanks. It’s my mom’s.” _ )

Before she knew it, Julie had backed up against one of the door and slid to the ground, her forehead resting on her knees as she held back the sobs that were threatening to burst forth.

She couldn’t do this. There was absolutely  _ no _ way that she could make it through this Christmas as if everything was fine and her mom wasn’t  _ deadgonedeceasednothere _ .

“Julie?”

Her heart felt like it stopped as she looked up from the little cocoon of sadness she had built herself into to see Luke, kneeling down next to her.

She realized that the music had stopped.

“Julie?” Luke repeated. “Are you… are you okay?”

His eyes were red and he had bags under his eyes and his brow was furrowed in a way that it  _ only _ did when he had been crying, too, and seeing that he had cried made  _ her _ burst like a dam as the tears burst forth.

She shook as she sobbed, feeling the coldness of the wooden doors that she was leaning against through her sweater and the rough concrete of the ground digging into her and she felt the ghost of a touch as Luke tried to put his hand on her shoulder but there wasn’t anything  _ solid _ and it just made her cry harder.

“I can’t,” she managed to get out, as Luke started to look more and more panicked. “I can’t do this without mom. Not again. I-“

Julie was jolted out of her spiel, her throat buzzing with the panic that  _ won’t go away _ , as a weight that felt familiar and yet not all at once tested on her shoulders. She looked up to see that Luke, now jacketless, had kneeled in front of her with his hands out as if he was holding her face like the night after they performed at the Orpheum and they could  _ touch _ for the first time.

She was wearing his jacket. The thick, flannel monstrosity that she knew what one of the only sleeved things that the other boy owned was resting on her shoulders and it was  _ heavy _ in a comforting way.

“I ran away from home a year ago today,” Luke said, once her  _ sadangrynonogoaway _ sobs stopped. “Well, 26 years ago.”

“Oh Luke.”

The boy leaned back, resting on his heels as he stared at Julie sadly. His hands had lowered to his jeans and she could see his white knuckled grip as he held tightly to himself to keep grounded.

“I just couldn’t anymore, you know?” He started. Julie reached out herself and hovered her hand over his, knowing they wouldn’t connect if they touched and she didn’t even want to deal with what  _ that _ would do to her mental state. “I just… dad was out getting take out because we always got takeout on Wednesday and mom just… kept going. I had failed a math test, but was just  _ math _ and only because Alex had been too busy dealing with his family to help me study.” He stopped and took a breath and Julie could hear his chest rattle from their close distance.

“She started going in about the band,  _ like she always did _ , but that time - I don’t know, I guess I just couldn’t deal with it. I started shouting back that she never believed in me, never supported me and-“

He stopped and let out a sob and Julie felt herself tearing up again as she moved closer to him until her knees were going through his and he was clutching onto the sleeves of his jacket that she hadn’t taken off.

“I packed a bag, grabbed my guitar and rode off on my bike,” he finally finished, once his sobs had died down and Julie’s knees had gone numb. “I remember… I remember she had just put out this  _ stupid  _ little Santa statue on the dining room table like she did every year and it didn’t look anything like the giant thing that’s in your front yard but for some reason it just-“

“It hit in all the worst ways,” Julie finished.

Luke took a deep breath. “Yeah. All the worst ways.”

The two fell silent, sitting on the ground. Both of his hands clutched onto the sleeves and used it to pull Julie as close as they could get with him behind incorporeal.

She felt a ghost of a kiss ( _ ha _ ) on her forehead as the lights that she hadn’t realized had already been strung around the awning of her house turned on as the sky started to get darker and darker and the Christmas lights lit them up just enough that she could see the small smile on his face.

And Julie wished, more than anything, that she could hug him and be held in return.


End file.
